THE COW IN APPLE TIME

The humor in this early Frost poem—about a cow whose udder goes dry thanks to overindulging on windfalls—is largely between the lines, but that’s where Yeagle goes, providing Bill Peet–style illustrations of a knobby Holstein (named “Cleo”) with large, long-lashed eyes and an avid expression leaping over stone walls and enthusiastically chowing down in the neighboring orchard. The poem is too short—even with the text split into a single line or phrase per spread, there are extra wordless pages—and its tongue-in-cheek tone contrasts sharply with the broad humor of the pictures. Moreover, the imbedded cautionary message about the perils of alcohol abuse (the drunken cow “bellows on a knoll against the sky” before going milk-less) will be lost on younger audiences. Susan Jeffers, Ed Young and many others have done better by this quintessential American poet. (Picture book. 6-8)